NORWID: COLOUR AND 'RAPHAEL'S RAINBOW'

• Authors: Kuczynska K.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

This article examines the reminiscences of the painter's experience in the poetry of Cyprian Norwid, master of 'the chisel, the pen and the brush'. This is not the first analysis of this kind for the theme of Norwid's painterly inspirations has preoccupied a number of historians of literature, chief among them Kazimierz Wyka, author of the landmark monograph 'Cyprian Norwid: The Poet Magician'. This article focuses primarily on the relationship between the poetic and the painterly imagination of Norwid the 'itenerant magician'. In his introductory note to 'Vade-mecum' Norwid declares that it is better to avoid 'sumptuous colours and imagery' as they tend to diminish the poetic word. Yet his own poems are by no means colour-free. Their appearance is, however, subject to a peculiar set of rules, applied, as it seems, with special care in the case of such noble colours as white and gold. The article tries to identify the source of Norwid's use of colours in tradition, cultural codes as well as the personal creative experience of the poet-magician. In addition, it tries to find out why he was so averse to the idea of 'graphic' poetry. Finally, the authoress' examination of Norwid's texts has revealed, alongside the restrained and muted colour imagery, a surprisingly frequent recurrence of the rainbow motif. What made it so appealing to the poet? It is all the more striking as colour was not part of his basic poetic tool kit. To describe Norwid's technique, which earned him the epithet 'monochromatic', and a host of other peculiarities of his verse, the authoress of this article has coined the term 'decolouring of words'.

Keywords

EN

COLOUR IMAGERY; NORWID CYPRIAN -POET MAGICIAN; POLISH LITERATURE (19TH C.); ROMANTIC POETRY

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Ruch Literacki
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 49
• Issue: 4-5
• Pages: 421-438
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kuczynska K.

• K. Kuczynska, Uniwersytet im. Adama MIckiewicza, Wydzial Filologii Polskiej i Klasycznej, al. Niepodleglosci 4, 61-874 Poznan, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

08PLAAAA05443